Search results for " archaeology"
showing 10 items of 936 documents
Sello alimentario romano relacionado con Juno Sospita procedente del SE Hispano
2017
Roman alimentary stamps have an iconography that sometimes is difficult to interpret. In this paper, some valuations on the images displayed on both sides of one of these objects, namely an example belonging to a private collection in Murcia, are offered. In its original publication a relation to agrarian cults through motifs that would refer to the goddess Ceres was proposed. However, it is a composition having its closest parallels in a series of Roman Republican coins issued in 64 bc by Lucio Roscio Fabato. These denarii are mainly linked to Juno Sospita and secondarily also to the Egyptian cults of Mediterranean expansion. Therefore we evaluate the possibility that such religious intera…
REFINING ESTIMATES FOR THE SEASON OF SHELLFISH COLLECTION ON THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST COAST: APPLYING HIGH-RESOLUTION STABLE OXYGEN ISOTOPE ANALYSIS AND…
2012
Stable oxygen isotopes from estuarine bivalve carbonate from Saxidomus gigantea were analysed combined with high-resolution sclerochronology from modern and archaeological shells from British Columbia, Canada, to determine the seasonality of shellfish collection from the archaeological site of Namu. The combination of high-resolution sclerochronology and a micro-milled sampling strategy for δ18O analysis permits a precise estimate of archaeological seasonality, because seasonal freshwater influxes and changes in temperature have dual effects on the δ18O value of the shell. Sclerochronological analysis identifies the timing and duration of growth that is temporally aligned to stable oxygen i…
Ceramic productions and human interactions during the Early Bronze Age in northern Iberia
2021
The Early Bronze Age ceramic collection found into the caves of La Llana and El Toral III in Asturias (Spain) presents common decoration such as that found in the centre of Cantabrian Spain from the same period, which resembles others found in the Ebro Valley and Atlantic Europe. Therefore, the main objective of this study it is to identify the raw material origin and understand the pottery production process during the Early Bronze Age in the Cantabrian region. A methodological approach based on the chemical and mineralogical analysis of vessels and experimentally fired clay samples collected all over the centre of this region was developed. Furthermore, the post-depositional processes aff…
Steroids aid in human decomposition fluid identification in soils of temporary mass graves from World War II
2020
Abstract Steroids are widely used for the detection of faecal matter and also – in recent years – for characterising human decomposition in the terrestrial environment. Until now it was not clear whether all commonly used faecal (i.e. 5β-stanols, 5β-stanones and bile acids) and tissue derived steroids (i.e. cholesterol, 5α-cholestanol and 5α-cholestanone) could reveal the presence of human decomposition products in temporary graves. In this study, soil was sampled from three putative mass graves where concentration camp prisoners were temporarily buried for 10 months at the end of World War II (1944 – 45). We hypothesised that soil from the putative temporary mass graves exhibits elevated c…
Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: Radiocarbon dating at the archaeolgoical site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)
2016
AbstractIn the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future …
El yacimiento calcolítico de Karea en el contexto de las cuevas sepulcrales de Gipuzkoa (País Vasco)
2018
En el yacimiento arqueológico de Karea (Aia, Gipuzkoa), integrado por las cavidades contiguas de Karea-A y Karea-B, se recuperaron numerosos restos cerámicos y faunísticos (Karea-A) y vestigios de una inhumación calcolítica (Karea-B). El presente trabajo se ha vertebrado en dos ejes. En primer lugar, el estudio de ambos depósitos mediante diferentes disciplinas: (1) estudio antropológico; (2) estudio del ajuar, compuesto por restos cerámicos y faunísticos; (3) identificación antracológica de los restos leñosos recuperados en el depósito funerario y por último, (4) estudios isotópicos que nos han permitido obtener datos de la alimentación (δ13C y δ15N) y procedencia (87Sr/86Sr) del sujeto in…
Dating Late Paleolithic Harpoons from Lake Lubāns, Latvia
2014
Over 3000 prehistoric bone and antler artifacts, collected in the late 1930s from the former lakebed of Lake Lubāns, are held by the National History Museum of Latvia. This collection is remarkable not only as one of the largest known assemblages of bone implements in northern Europe, but also in terms of diversity of forms. The most elaborately worked objects include harpoons, often with two rows of barbs and spade-shaped bases, which are believed to date to the Late Paleolithic, and to be among the oldest organic artifacts ever found in Latvia. Four broken specimens were sampled in 2011 for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating, stable isotope analysis, and taxonomic attribution by Z…
Dead wood gathering among Neanderthal groups: Charcoal evidence from Abric del Pastor and El Salt (Eastern Iberia)
2017
International audience; We present here a new approach combining the microscopic characterization of fungal decay features and the fragmentation degree of the charcoal remains from Middle Palaeolithic combustion structures: features H4 and H11 from Abric del Pastor, unit IV (>75 ka BP) and features H50 and H57 from El Salt, unit Xb (ca. 52 ka BP), Eastern Iberia. The observation of wood degradation patterns that occurred prior to charring followed by their quantitative analysis according to previous experimental studies revealed differences between the alteration degrees of the firewood used in the hearths, highlighting the existence of firewood acquisition criteria based on dead wood gathe…
A combined dietary approach using isotope and dental buccal-microwear analysis of human remains from the Neolithic, Roman and Medieval periods from t…
2016
Stable isotope and dental-microwear analysis are methods commonly used to reconstruct dietary habits in modern and ancient human populations. However, it is rare that they are both used together in the same study, and here both methods are combined to obtain information on human dietary habits from the site of Tossal de les Basses (Alicante, Spain) through time. Middle Neolithic, Late Roman and Medieval (Islamic) individuals have been analyzed for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of bone collagen, as well as for buccal-dental microwear. Overall, δ13C and δ15N isotopic values show that for all periods the diet was mainly based on C3 terrestrial resources. However, the isotopic signa…
Oppida, Agglomerations, and Suburbia: the Bibracte Environs and New Perspectives on Late Iron Age Urbanism in Central-eastern France
2013
This paper explores the nature and chronology of La Tène and early Roman unenclosed agglomerations in central-eastern France. It has been prompted by the discovery of a c. 115 ha La Tène D2b/Augustan (c. 50 BC to AD 15) site close to Bibracte in the Morvan, located around the source of the River Yonne. This complex provides a new perspective on the chronology and role of Late La Tène and early Roman unenclosed settlements, adding further complexity to the story of the development of Late La Tène oppida. It indicates that these ‘agglomerations’ followed remarkably varied chronological trajectories, raising important issues concerning the nature of landscape and social change at the end of th…